Have a good Lord’s Day
Bethany is best known in the gospel story as the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Luke does not give us the name of the “village’ where Martha (evidently the older sister) `received Jesus into her house’, but it must have been Bethany, if John’s record is allowed to shed light on Luke’s. Here Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his teaching while Martha was busily engaged in preparing a meal for the honoured guest (Luke 10:38-42). Here, later, Lazarus their brother fell ill and died, and was raised to life by Jesus (John 11:1-44). Here Jesus was guest of honour at a meal during Holy Week, `in the house of Simon the leper’ (Mark 14:3; compare John 12:2), and was anointed with costly nard by a woman whom John identifies as Mary. Later, after he was raised from the dead, Jesus led his disciples out `as far as Bethany’ and took his leave of them (Luke 24:50, 51; compare Acts 1:9-12).
Looking west from the Inn of the Good Samaritan, the Mount of Olives is silhouetted against the dusk. Bethany is on the eastern slope of the mount; Jerusalem lies less than two miles to the west.
Jesus spent the week before his last Passover in Bethany, staying in the house of Simon the Leper.
The entrance to the stone crypt where Lazarus may have been laid before Jesus brought him back to life.
Bethany lies on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than two miles from Jerusalem (John 11:18). The meaning of the name is uncertain: if it is an abbreviation of Beth-Ananiah (the house of Ananiah), it may be the Ananiah of Nehemiah 11:32. Bethany, as such, first appears in literature in Judith 1:9, where it is mentioned alongside Jerusalem. It was the last staging-post on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem.
The Bordeaux pilgrim visited Bethany in AD 333 and was shown the vault or crypt in which the body of Lazarus was believed to have lain. Eusebius of Caesarea mentions the vault or crypt around the same time. Not long afterwards a church was built over the site, for Egeria saw it in AD 381: she tells how a special service was held there towards the end of Lent, `six days before the Passover’ (compare John 12:1). It is from this church, called the Lazareion (or shrine of Lazarus), that the Muslim name of the village, El Azariyeh, is derived. The Muslims of Bethany regard Lazarus as a saint. Egeria saw another church half a mile on the Jerusalem side of the Lazareion, at the reported spot where Mary met the Lord as he was on his way to the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:29) an improbable site, because Jesus on this occasion came to Bethany from the Jordan, not from Jerusalem.
Excavations conducted in Bethany between 1949 and 1953 uncovered remains of four churches, the later ones built over the earlier ones, to the east of the traditional tomb of Lazarus. The earliest of the four may have been the church seen by Egeria. Mosaics from all of them could be distinguished. In their precincts and vicinity were many rock-cut tombs. The most recent of these four churches was transformed into a mosque, which still stands.
The visitor to Bethany today is shown an opening in the hillside leading into the underground chamber traditionally held to be the tomb of Lazarus. Some fifty feet lower down, the modern Franciscan Church of St. Lazarus was built in 1953, on the supposed site of Martha’s house. It is beautifully decorated with murals depicting relevant scenes from the gospel narrative. Some interesting relics are housed in it, including a mosaic from the sixth-century Byzantine church which once stood there, and a Roman inscription bearing; witness to the presence nearby of the Tenth (Fretensian) Legion, the military unit which occupied Judea after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.
The old road from Bethany to Jerusalem, crossing the summit of the Mount of Olives, passed by Bethphage (meaning `the place of figs’). This was the village where the disciples found the donkey ready tethered for Jesus’ use and brought it to their master, in accordance with his instructions, so that he might complete his journey to Jerusalem on its back (Mark 11:1-10). It is frequently suggested that the present village of Et-Tur, on the summit, stands where Bethphage stood. This may well be so. The small Franciscan church marking the spot where Jesus is held to have mounted the donkey stands some way down the eastern slope, on the Bethany side of Et-Tur, but Jesus is not said to have mounted the donkey at Bethphage: the disciples brought it from the village to the point which Jesus had reached on his way from Bethany. From this church a procession to Jerusalem starts every Palm Sunday. A similar procession is described by Egeria in AD 384, except that in her day it set out from the church called Eleona (built by the Emperor Constantine on the summit to commemorate the Ascension). The procession, as it moves down the western slope of the hill, passes the church called Dominus Flevit (‘The Lord wept’), marking the spot where Jesus came in sight of Jerusalem and wept over it (Luke 19:41). The dome of the church has the shape of a tear-drop, and in front of the little altar within there is a mosaic depicting a hen gathering her chickens under her wings (compare Matthew 23:37).
Looking from the Mount of Olives across old Jerusalem at sunrise. Walls once enclosed the magnificent Temple built by Herod the Great.
Luke 10:38-42 The village is not named, but comparison with John’s record leaves us in no doubt that it was Bethany. Here we are introduced to the two sisters and their respective activities when Jesus visited them: Martha waiting on him and Mary learning from him. John 11:1-44 That Jesus is the resurrection and the life is declared in word and shown in action at Bethany. Mark 11:11 After the excitement in Jerusalem day by day during Holy Week, Bethany provides welcome rest by night. Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8 The supper party at Bethany provides a setting for the anointing of Jesus. At least one person recognises his royal dignity. The costliness of the ointment is emphasised: nothing but the best is good enough for the King of kings. And when we are tempted to say, `This might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor, ‘let us reflect who it was that first said it. Luke 24:50,51 Bethany is here the scene of the final blessing and parting.
Ancient olive trees flourish in a garden on the slopes where Jesus and his disciples met in the Garden
FF. Bruce. Jesus & Paul, places they knew.
